Nurses from India are due to start work in Coventry and Warwickshire soon.

Nurses from India are due to start work in Coventry and Warwickshire soon.

The appointments, part of a plan to fill nursing vacancies in hospitals across the region, come as a major nursing organisation claims a shortage of staff could threaten plans to overhaul the NHS.

The Royal College of Nursing conducted a survey of registered nurses and found that 24 per cent are due to retire in the next five years and only one in eight nurses is under 30, compared with one in four 10 years ago.

Lack of nurses affects patient care and makes it harder to deliver improvements.

Karen Martin, acting director of personnel at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, which runs Walsgrave, Coventry and Warwickshire and Rugby's St Cross hospitals, said there was a shortage of nurses across the NHS.

But she said locally the number of training places for student nurses was on the up, projects to bring in overseas nurses were successful and the number of vacancies was starting to see a downward trend.

She said: "We do have a vacancy rate that is higher than we would like but it is no worse than any other trust given the current situation with nursing.

"We have undertaken a number of recruitment initiatives including bringing in overseas nurses and we are coping at the moment.

"We have about 80 nurses, from the Philippines and China, and we have just been involved in a visit to India organised by the NHS regional office.

"It looks like we will be appointing seven nurses from India who should be starting with us shortly."

The trust has about 124 vacancies in nursing and auxiliary posts. Some 2,500 nurses are employed at the trust's three sites.

The stability rate is relatively steady at almost 88 per cent.

Mrs Martin said: "We do not have a particularly high turn-over rate. Once people come to us they usually stay so they do end up working to their retirement age.

"But it is not a major problem for us getting replacements. There are increasing numbers of student nurses coming out of Coventry University.

"In November we took on 48 and this February we are looking to take 60. A few years ago we were only getting 20 or 30."